Minus Ten
by aloxi
Summary: "You should go away before I hit you." "That's mean. You're not supposed to hit people." "I don't do what I'm supposed to." / / Or, the first time Beck meets Jade.


**disclaimer: **not mine, yo.

**author's note: **Is school kicking anyone else's ass? -.- I've had this written for like a month, and I'm seriously sick of not updating my other Jade/Beck fic, so have some littlekid!Jade/Beck instead. They're cute at any age, amirite. x) I don't really like this ending of this (at all), so feel free to concrit away. Reviews are appreciated. :)

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The first time Beck Oliver meets Jade West, she's trying to pretend like she isn't crying.

He pauses on the green-painted platform that connects the tunnel to the slide, peering down at her. "Hey," he says, because she looks so sad and she has the longest hair he's ever seen. "Are you okay?"

She lifts her head off her knees and glares through watery eyes. "Go _away, _stupid."

Beck's not exactly sure why he's stupid, but he just shrugs. Girls are weird. He doesn't go away, though, and instead crouches down in front of her. "Why're you crying?"

"I'm _not. _Leave me alone!" she yells, her voice carrying around the empty playground. It's so late the sun is dipping off behind the trees in the distance and the tall metal poles of the swing-set make lean black shadows. His dad is taking a walk, Beck's pretty sure, but that's okay because he likes to play by himself most of the time. But he doesn't think this girl does, otherwise she wouldn't be crying all alone on a play set.

That thought is really sad, something out of those movies with big swelling music and lots of silence where people just talk with their eyes, and so Beck leans forward a little on his hands. The girl wipes furiously at her cheeks, meeting his gaze with a scowl. "_What?_"

"I asked why you were crying," he says. Her eyes are weirdly blue, like the middle of the candle their housekeeper lights sometimes to make the house smell like mangoes.

Suddenly he's forced back when she thrusts out her hands and _shoves. _"None of your business. Stupid."

"You already called me stupid," Beck points out. She seems like the kind of girl who doesn't like using the same mean word twice.

"Dummy." Except her voice is all soft and curled up at the edges instead of loud and mad like before. The criss-cross metal pattern of the platform cuts into his hands from where she pushed him away; he rights himself slowly, sitting on his knees.

"Are you crying 'cause you're alone?" he asks.

"I'm not alone,you're here. Don't you know _anything?_" she snaps. The knees of her jeans are streaked with wet spots, though, so Beck can't really make himself get too mad at her for being mean. It's hard to get mad at sad people.

He scoots a little closer to her. Gnats buzz all around them as he tries, "Are you crying 'cause it's getting dark and you're scared of the dark?"

Her eyes turn into little slits. "I'm not scared of anything, especially the dumb dark."

Beck is quiet for a second, thinking. "Are you crying 'cause the sun's gonna explode tomorrow?"

She stares at him, her fingers clenched over each other. "What are you _talking _about?"

"I was trying to make you laugh," he admits, also trying to make their eyes meet back up. It's lots easier to find out what people mean when you're looking at their eyes. "It didn't work."

"_Duh._" She lets her legs slide out to straight in front of her, resting her hands in her lap. "You're not funny."

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm _not,_" she says, and scrubs a palm over her face, making a mock-surprised look when it comes back dry.

"You were." Beck leans over a little, putting his hands on her shoes, but she kicks her feet sharply and he nearly hits himself in the face with his own hand. Apparently that's all he needed to do, because like she can't help it a giggle bubbles out of her mouth. Her laugh, Beck thinks, sounds like candy would if it made noise.

Then she clamps her lips shut and glares at him again. He considers mentioning that her eyelashes are still spiked with tears, but it's probably a bad idea. "You should go away before I hit you."

"That's mean. You're not supposed to hit people."

"I don't do what I'm supposed to."

"Bet you get in trouble with your mom a lot," he says knowingly, then yelps when her foot collides with his side. "_Ow!_"

"Just shut up!" she shouts, balling her hands together and lashing out with her foot again. He scrambles to the side, out of her range, and stares while she sucks in breaths and tucks her knees back under her chin. A car starts in the distance as they sit in silence, the cast of the almost-set sun turning the girl's face a weird orange pastel. Beck wonders if it's because she's so pale, that any color on her is like spilling paint over blank paper.

"Were you crying," he says quietly, "because you're mad at your mom?"

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, holding tight to her knees. Slowly, she nods. "Yeah."

Beck crawls a little bit closer. "What did she do?"

Suddenly the girl is staring at him straight on, candle-eyes flickering. "Why do you _care?_"

He thinks about it for a second. "I don't want you to be sad. It's not fun."

She blinks at him. The wind pushes its way through the worn bars that cage them in to the play-place, and he watches her shiver a little in her short sleeves. He wonders if he should maybe hug her, but she'd kicked him earlier and usually people who kick you don't want hugs from you, too.

"She left," the girl finally mutters into the silence, casting her eyes down. "With her stupid boyfriend."

Beck considers this. "She shouldn't have left you all alone."

The girl looks at him again, surprise painting her face in a whole different light. "I know." She relaxes a little bit, but he can't help imagining the bars of the play-place still locked over her eyes. "I always have to wait here 'till they come back. But last time—" Her words come out faster, a little wild, but Beck just nods because he really does understand. He listens. "—But _last_ time they didn't come back 'till it was all the way dark."

"Oh," Beck says, his eyebrows crinkling together with sympathy. "That's _really_ not nice." It's really mean, is what he wants to say, but he also thinks that saying it would also, in a weird way, be mean: because it's the girl's mom and even if she's mad, she must still _love _her, and Beck wouldn't want her to call _his_ dad mean.

"I _know._" This time her voice isn't hard and tight; she just sounds tired. The girl hugs her knees even more closely. Beck wants to reach out and untangle her fingers from each other, because she has them knotted so tight it looks like it hurts, and also he's pretty sure that whole 'girls have cooties' thing is a lie, anyway— but he's also afraid she might kick him again, or maybe smack him, or call him stupid, so he figures it's a good idea to just use words to make her feel better.

Before he can, the girl raises her chin to him. "Does your mom ever leave you?" she asks, her voice high and strained the way voices get when there's tears in the way. "Ever?"

He watches her silently for a moment. "I don't have a mom. But when my dad leaves, I don't get so sad, 'cause I know when he's coming back. Like now," Beck continues, while the girl's thick eyebrows rise, "he said he'd get back from his walk before the sun went all the way down. So it's no big deal. But when you don't know when somebody's coming back… it's a big deal."

"Yeah," she says softly. Her arms loosen and fall down a little on her legs. "Yeah, it's a big deal."

It sounds like she's talking more to herself than him now, so Beck stays quiet, tugging absently at his shoelace. He studies her out of the corner of his eye. The tee shirt she's wearing looks too small on her; it's a faded blue that almost-but-not-quite matches her eyes. That's cool. Her shoes are scuffed and if Beck squints, he can see a freckle on the ear she has her hair tucked behind. She'd be really pretty, he thinks, if she smiled.

"I didn't know," the girl says abruptly, "about you not having a mom."

"That's why I told you," he says, puzzled, because why would she know something like that?

"I— yeah." She pushes one foot onto the toe, scrubbing it into the metal. "Sorry," she finally mumbles, like the word is a Band-aid she just got ripped out of her mouth.

"What for?" He moves a little bit closer to her, and when she doesn't flinch away turns and presses his back to the bars so that they're side-by-side. "It's okay. She's been gone a long time, I don't remember her."

"Oh." The girl tilts her head at him, and the sun is angled behind her so that the edges of her hair are lit like a halo. "That's… I bet she was nice."

He smiles at her, a little bemused, but still a smile. "Thanks. I bet so, too."

The girl takes a deep breath, like she's about to jump into a huge rush of blue icy water. "I don't have a dad."

Beck starts, blinking at her. "I hope not. 'Cause you said your mom has a boyfriend and that's kinda weird, otherwise."

Another one of those surprised-laughs hiccups out of her throat. She smacks a hand over her mouth, like it's not a good thing to be laughing about, but then she can't help it and descends into giggles right there on the play-place. Her shoulder knocks against his and it's cold, even through her shirt, and now Beck _really _wants to hug her but he's still sure it's not a good idea. He has a strange kind of feeling that she's like one of those machines at the store his nanny takes him to, where you put in a quarter and twist the knob and a plastic container rattles out with a prize inside; except being allowed to give her hugs is _her_ prize, and he's going to have to know this girl for a long, long time before he has nearly enough money to get just one.

Then Beck feels himself being jostled roughly, and when he looks up the girl is scrambling onto her knees, lunging forward to the other side of the tower they've been sitting on to press her face to the bars. "Mom!" she yells out, her voice sounding torn between door-slamming, no-dessert mad and gleefully happy. Half-against what little better judgment he has, Beck crawls beside her and squints. A lady with red hair and a short skirt is standing unsurely between two swings several feet away. The girl tugs herself up. "Mommy!"

She looks down at him quickly, and Beck can tell she's embarrassed about, well everything. He doesn't know why, though, of course she's happy her mom's back, of course she's relieved and excited. Why would anybody make fun of her for that?

"Go get her," he urges, not making to get up too. It's her mom, not his, even if he feels a little bit sad somewhere on the inside for not having anybody to call Mommy and then to be embarrassed when he does— he has a dad, Beck reminds himself, a cool dad who lets him spin in his office chair and comes with him to Open House at school even though he should be at work. That was better, he'd decided a long time ago, than nothing at all.

"Hey."

The girl sinks to her knees again, falling forward so that Beck can see a criss-cross of blue veins beneath the skin of her neck. She looks uncomfortable and promptly glares. "You didn't tell me your name."

"Oh. It's Beck."

A crease appears between her eyebrows. "That's for real your name?"

"Yeah. Why?" He frowns at her, not a real mad frown, a fun joking frown, but the girl still bristles.

"It's _weird_," she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I bet _you _have a weird name."

"I do not!"

"I'm just kidding," he says, making his words come out soft. He thinks that maybe she doesn't get teased a lot for fun. Or maybe she just gets teased for real. The idea makes his stomach twist sadly. "What's your name? I bet it's pretty."

She considers him for a moment, deciding whether or not he deserves the information. "I'm Jade," she finally says, and stands up again. "'Bye."

Beck raises a hand, but Jade is already tearing down the metal stairs. Without meaning to, exactly, he watches her skid through the pebbles that cover the playground and wrap herself tightly around her mom's waist. Only after her mom leads her away, locking their hands together and swinging them high into the air, does Beck lay down on the cold play-place and watch the sky get more and more purple every time he closes and opens his eyes, waiting for his dad and thinking about Jade.

She really is pretty, he thinks, remembering the hot blue of her eyes and her cold, white skin. When his dad finally shows up, smiling in that tired way Dad does and asking if he'd had a good time, Beck's last fleeting thought on the subject before they go home to huge stairwells and accented nannies and walls without pictures is whether or not he'll ever see her again.


End file.
